Oh my goodness, friends, I had so much fun with this one. Technically I did all the coding for it, but it felt more like a collaborative effort with Mea's intensive testing, feedback, and creative direction. Were it not for her, the implementation of this would be far less intuitive. The result is probably the most flexible form of a Magic Words command that I've ever managed to write. I really hope you all enjoy it!
Download it here! Remember, this requires the Magic Words Core to work, and please read on for more details!
A word of caution-- the more creatures you have in your My Creatures folder, the slower these commands will run. If you have hundreds of creatures, you may occasionally get the 'infinite loop' error, but it's not actually infinite-- you can retry until the script finishes running, or abort the loop and run the command again until you get all the creatures you want. Additionally, be very careful when importing tons of creatures. The last thing you want is to import 500 creatures and then your game crashes, erasing all the creatures you just imported.
The basic syntax for these commands is simply Import [what] and Export [what]. There can be many 'whats'. You can specify number, species, gender, lifestage, and/or world, in any order. There is a safeguard limit of 50 creatures for imports, but you can override this (at your own risk!) by specifying a number higher than 50 or simply "all" Some examples:
Import 4 -> Imports 4 of any creature
Import ettin -> Imports one ettin
Import norns -> Imports up to 50 norns
Export male norns -> Exports all male norns
Import all grendels -> Imports ALL grendels, even if there are more than 50 in your exports folder.
Import ettin 4 -> Imports 4 ettins. 'Import ettins 4' has the same effect.
Import 4 ettin child female -> Imports 4 female child ettins
Export youths -> Exports all youth creatures
Import 10 adult genderless -> Imports 10 adult genderless creatures of any species
Import 4 ettin child female w:ettin_world -> Imports 4 female child ettins that were exported from a world named "Ettin World"
'World' is a special parameter that will look for only creatures who have been exported from the specified world. This is useful when doing a complete migration from another world. This specification must begin with "w:" and contain no spaces. If there are spaces in the world name, you will need to replace them with underscores. This does mean that there is no distinction between creatures exported from 'Albian Reborn' and 'albia_reborn' so if for some reason you name your worlds like that, keep that in mind.
The export command works identically to the import, sans the world parameter and 50 creature limit.
Additionally, this agent does include an additional command: 'Cloning Toggle'. By default, it is set to NOT bypass import cloning and WILL clone creatures that you import that were not originally exported from one of your worlds (such as creatures you've downloaded). This is important to prevent moniker clashes if the creature is sent through the warp later. While, as of writing, online creature tracking isn't set up in Albian Warp or Rebabel, it's not impossible that it will be one day in the future. If you choose to turn cloning off, please consider not sending the creatures that you import through the warp. Also note that this toggle ONLY affects Magic Words Import, and does not impact imports that happen via the traditional control panel.
Finally, there is a special bonus creature included in the this zip file, very appropriately autonamed Path Pain, with a moniker, also appropriately, ending in 666.
While rigorously testing Magic Words IE, Mea discovered that this creature-- and for some reason, this creature only-- was causing the agent to throw errors after she had moved it out of the exports folder. When she sent me the creature, I discovered the exact same thing. It was super ominous.
Eventually we were able to fix the error with a better-placed PRAY REFR, but this creature still might actually be cursed, so in the true spirit of 2020, we're passing this curse on to you. Import at your own risk, of course! And like any creature you download from the internet, you'll need to bypass import cloning to retain the original name and moniker of the creature.
Oh, and one last thing! A few people asked me about the background music used in this video and to be honest it's just something simple I put together with the default presets in LMMS (which, by the way, is free, and a lot of fun to just mess around in, even if you, like me, are not terribly musically inclined) because I wanted something vaguely Creatures-y sounding. It's not included in the zipfile, but you can download it here if you like, and feel free to use it in your own Creatures videos!
Hope you're all enjoying this CCSF! I personally have been greatly looking forward to the videos as they release and watching all the drama unfold. I really hope CCSF Wolfling run videos remain an ongoing tradition!
